cut their throats, or sponged on her family, though, of course,
Florence wanted such a lot that it would have suited her very
badly to have for a husband a clerk in a dry-goods store, which was
what old Hurlbird would have made of that fellow. He hated him.
No, I do not think that there is much excuse for Florence.

God knows. She was a frightened fool, and she was fantastic, and I
suppose that, at that time, she really cared for that imbecile. He
certainly didn't care for her. Poor thing. . . . At any rate, after I had
assured her that the "Pocahontas" was a steady ship, she just said:
"You'll have to look after me in certain ways--like Uncle Hurlbird
is looked after. I will tell you how to do it." And then she stepped
over the sill, as if she were stepping on board a boat. I suppose she
had burnt hers!

I had, no doubt, eye-openers enough. When we re-entered the
Hurlbird mansion at eight o'clock the Hurlbirds were just
exhausted. Florence had a hard, triumphant air. We had got
married about four in the morning and had sat about in the woods
above the town till then, listening to a mocking-bird imitate an old
tom-cat. So I guess Florence had not found getting married to me
a very stimulating process. I had not found anything much more
inspiring to say than how glad I was, with variations. I think I was
too dazed. Well, the Hurlbirds were too dazed to say much. We
had breakfast together, and then Florence went to pack her grips
and things. Old Hurlbird took the opportunity to read me a
full-blooded lecture, in the style of an American oration, as to the
perils for young American girlhood lurking in the European
jungle. He said that Paris was full of snakes in the grass, of which
he had had bitter experience. He concluded, as they always do,